[DeTomaso] NPC: Hiking the Subway slot canyon at Zion National Park

[Corey Price]

My wife and I just hiked the Subway at Zion National Park in Utah. The Subway is just one part of a beautiful slot canyon in the red sandstone of Zion amongst pine trees and a semi-arid to desert environment.  The hike is a 9 mile round trip.  It is a difficult hike that requires down climbing, swimming, hiking, way finding, etc.  Not for the faint of heart, the hike can be downright deadly if ill-prepared or on a day with potential storms.  Flash floods are common in the desert, and these can make the narrow canyons a raging torrent of water and debris, and people have been caught in them & killed.

We started the day by getting up and getting ready.  Our permit allowed 12 of us to access the slot canyon.  Six people actually left early to do "Das Boot" which is probably named for the rappels involving dropping into the "boot" from above into water.  The people doing "Das Boot" needed full wetsuits and climbing gear.  The rest of us waited two hours and set off.  After hiking several miles on a sparsely-marked trail thru pines and down flowing sand-dune sandstone, we ended up at the mouth of the slot and hiked & boulder hopped down in thru a steep and narrow path.  We immediately had to wade through waist-deep cold stagnant water that left me speaking higher.  We met up with the earlier group at that point and proceeded down the canyon.  

Several obstacles required rappelling or down climbing.  Several more required that plus swimming thru really cold, deep, murky water with our backpacks floating in front of us.  We were soaked and extremely cold, shaking quite badly and huddling in the small, narrow strips of sunlight like lizards sunbathing.

Upon reaching Keyhole Falls, we dropped thru the keyhole slot and swam thru a narrow slit and under a log jammed in the slot.   Swimming through these, I missed/ignored the scenery and just wanted to move on, but now I regret not seeing more.

The Subway section is really spectacular but the last of the real obstacles.  The last four miles consists of way-finding through a washed out creek with boulders, trees, debris, etc and then up the canyon wall on an extremely steep path.  The trail out could easily be missed without a good guide or GPS.  My poor wife had a hard time up the trail and I carried her pack as well as my own.  We then drove 5 hours back to Salt Lake in a marathon drive, getting back about midnight to relieve my mother as our babysitter.

However, the fun is muted now.  We just saw the following:

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=22219449&nid=148&title=man-dies-after-spending-night-upside-down-in-zion-subway&s_cid=queue-4

Whoever they were, the two men were in a group somewhere behind us on the very same day (yesterday).  Had we known, we would have truly helped.

There are also many stories of people being stranded or killed during flash floods.

Corey